Reply to NBC News Poll: dramatic shift, Americans no longer see 4-year college degrees as worth the cost

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hmmmm. A $120,000 Gender Studies degree or IBEW Local 26?

Easy choice.[/quote]

Except, the kid doing IBEW Local 26 is deciding between that and likely a business or engineering or other practical degree...and anyone getting a Gender Studies degree is not anyone who is likely cut out for IBEW Local 26.[/quote]

I’d hope that potential business and engineering majors would grasp both the threat of AI, and the delta between college debt over 4 years vs. 4 years of decent income.

If you had a 2022 high school graduate would you rather they went to college for engineering, or joined the electrical union? Next year is stacking up to be the worst year for college graduates since COVID. Couple that with the AI headwind and the electrician will be several steps ahead.[/quote]

While I know what you are kind of saying...the reality is that my kid already has an offer in CS for $200k plus bonus and options (and ability to work for the company at the same hourly rate during the school year) at an AI company, while his HS friend is doing an electrician apprenticeship in DC for $52k year.  His friend is a great "hands on" kind of kid who had terrible grades in school and would likely flunk out of college (but was smart enough to realize that college is not for him).

It's a great outcome for his buddy...and perhaps his buddy will have more stable long-term employment...but my kid has zero debt and is fairly optimistic about his own prospects...so maybe I can report back in 10 years how both have fared.

[/quote]

What a coincidence. A parent with a STEM grad the very same year as the example who already has a unicorn job offer A[b]ND a low paid electrician friend that shares his salary.[/b] Thanks for letting us all know.[/quote]

It's not low-paid...it's what apprentices make to start and he will see raises once he completes his apprenticeship and becomes a fully-certified union electrician (this is his 2nd year BTW).  Obviously, neither he or parents will incur college costs.

Also, they are HS friends...so of course it's the same year.[/quote]

+1, people around here call certain CS or finance salaries “unicorn” but then act shocked when they see that the actual electrician/plumber/mechanic salaries are not the $220k ones they heard about in a story once.[/quote]

A 200k CS starting salary IS a unicorn, regardless of electrician salaries.

The median salary in the US for CS is less than 150k.  And that includes people with decades of experience, not just a bunch of 22 year old pissants.[/quote]

Not right now and not if you have ML/AI skills...but how long it lasts?

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-jobs-entry-level-salary-ab2a11c0?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqd590OkgqcIhHjzmDLVoV9KARBlLbLpmH5fa6RxMLZUtaLM0_mt0eifW-9sjNo%3D&gaa_ts=692e0d9e&gaa_sig=DBgk0K5p03ZujQSjgo9b3NTeOQeCoKNrm4EeIbQt6vaSPItPqYMV3oaFAaXOv06mgp2MH3hHdUN21rKm16nWyw%3D%3D

While AI is part of the reason for the doldrums, there is a bright spot when it comes to workers with actual experience in machine learning. They’re in their early 20s, they have AI know-how, and a bunch of them are making $1 million a year.

“There is a significant salary difference between a machine-learning engineer job and a software-engineer job,” says Anil K. Gupta, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and co-lead of its AI job tracker.

Databricks, the data-analytics software company whose value has skyrocketed during the AI boom, plans to triple the number of people it hires right out of school this year, in part because of their familiarity with AI.

A generative-AI research scientist with as little as two years experience can make base salaries between $190,000 and $260,000 at Databricks, according to the company’s job-postings page. Including stock grants, the overall compensation can be much higher.

“We definitely have people, quite junior people, that have big impact, and they’re getting paid a lot,” says Ghodsi. “Under 25, you can be making a million.”[/quote]

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